


The Bloodbender's Penance

by Freedoms_Champion



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Bloodbending (Avatar), Dark, F/F, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Korrasami - Freeform, Noatak and Tarrlok lived, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Avatar: The Legend of Korra, Revenge, also bloodbending headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:34:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26668297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Freedoms_Champion/pseuds/Freedoms_Champion
Summary: Late at night, Noatak and Tarrlok don't expect someone to start knocking on their door.When Noatak opens the door and Avatar Korra falls into his arms, one thing is clear: she won't be able to save Asami by herself. Tarrlok can't help without his bending.Noatak goes to save his old friend's daughter and breaks a vow to himself to do it.
Relationships: Korra/Asami Sato
Comments: 3
Kudos: 35





	The Bloodbender's Penance

**Author's Note:**

> This one is dark. Please don't read if you don't like homophobic behavior or bloody murder.
> 
> Otherwise, have fun and thank you for reading.

Hailstones clattered on the roof. Noatak stood by the stove and listened to them, trying to accustom himself to the unfamiliar sound. He had lived in this house for nearly six years, but the hail was still weird for him.

Tarrlok came into the kitchen and slumped at the table. Noatak stirred his soup absently, studying his younger brother’s face. With his hair cut short, the resemblance between them was more pronounced, but Tarrlok still had an aloofness that Noatak didn’t share. It served him well, for the most part. Tarrlok had unwillingly been dragged into the politics of their tiny town and now he served as the local administrator, ensuring that all the townspeople obeyed the laws and treated each other fairly. It wasn’t his old job on the Republic City council, but Noatak could see that his brother really did enjoy politics, no matter how much he complained.

Still, the long hours were wearing on him. Noatak wondered if it was time to intervene and make sure Tarrlok wasn’t working himself to death.

“Help yourself,” he said, carrying the pot of soup to the table. Tarrlok perked up a little and poured several ladles into his bowl.

“How was the fishing today?” Tarrlok asked, breaking pieces off a seaweed loaf to dip in the broth.

“Not bad. Soon it’ll be winter again and most of the fish will move on, but for now I get by. I’ll have to be careful in the next few days.”

Noatak tried not to shiver, but he couldn’t help it. The full moon was coming, the time when his bloodbending power was at its peak. He didn’t need the moon, but that didn’t change much. He’d vowed years ago that he would never use his father’s dark ability again and that vow was tested with every full moon that rose.

Bloodbending wanted to be used.

“The fish beginning to migrate gives you a reason to sail farther out,” Tarrlok said. His voice remained casual, but Noatak knew the moon was on his mind too. “No one would think anything of it if you were out for a night or two.”

“Can you manage without me?”

“Obviously, or I wouldn’t have suggested it,” Tarrlok said with a hint of superiority. “You enjoy cooking so much that I haven’t had a chance to use any of my own skills. It’ll be nice to have the house to myself for once.”

Noatak smiled. “I’ll pack in the morning, then. Out to sea, maybe it’ll be easier to manage.”

Tarrlok only nodded. Bloodbending was a painful subject between them, stretching from their troubled childhood to their reunion in Republic City. Both of them had used it on each other and Noatak was the reason his brother could no longer bend even the smallest drop of water.

He had offered to try and undo it, of course. He hadn’t wanted to in the first place, but Tarrlok wouldn’t hear of it. He was happier without the burden of his bending, happy enough that the loss of the advantages didn’t bother him.

Noatak was happy too. His insanity had accomplished one good thing. It didn’t make up for the horrors, which were extensive, but one good thing was all he could ask for. It was more than he deserved.

He didn’t serve himself any soup. The days leading up to the full moon left him jittery and tense, robbing him of his appetite and most of his patience. The lonely life of a fisherman was a blessing then, and he accepted that he would never be particularly prosperous in exchange for the solitude.

Someone pounded on the front door.

Knocking was too mild a term for it, really. This was hammering, desperate and uncoordinated, as if the person outside was too frightened and shaky to stand for much longer.

“Are you expecting trouble?” Noatak asked Tarrlok, getting up from the table. When Tarrlok shook his head, Noatak made his way to the door. If it was trouble, better he face it than his brother.

He opened the door and had only a brief moment to look at the visitor before she collapsed against him. She was small but built solidly and layered with muscle. Dark hair, cropped at chin length and unadorned, combined with her deep brown skin made it likely she was from the Water Tribes. Her blue clothes suggested the same thing, though the style was of the South, not the North where Noatak had grown up.

All speculation faded from his mind as he smelled blood.

Vicious instincts rose in Noatak and he slammed the doors of his mind shut on them. Now was not the time to start running wild. He lifted the girl and brought her inside, letting the door swing closed behind him.

“Tarrlok, clear the table!” he called. He might have been toughened by years of hauling nets, but this girl was making his shoulders strain. Dishes clattered and when he reached the kitchen, there was a place to put her.

“What’s happened?” Tarrlok asked, helping Noatak set her down gently. Unasked, he brought a lamp and hung it from a hook in the ceiling beam, providing enough light for them to work on the girl’s injuries.

“Not sure.” Noatak might have continued speaking, but the additional light gave him a chance to look fully at the girl’s face and it shocked him to realize he knew her.  
Years of suffering had worked a change on Avatar Korra, but there was no mistaking her. Not when Noatak had faced her so many times.

He overcame the shock a moment later and began checking her injuries.

All the blood made it look worse than it was, but Noatak was still worried. Bruises covered Korra’s torso, ran up and down her forearms, and ringed one of her eyes. Shallow, messy cuts suggested she had fought back or that someone had been able to keep her still and used a knife carelessly.

Noatak knew the fiery spirit of the girl on his table. Even if her tormentors had found a way to negate her bending, they wouldn’t have been able to overpower her. She had fought like a wild spirit.

“Help,” Korra whispered. Pain twisted her face, but she managed to slide her good eye open a little.

“We’re going to help you, I swear,” Noatak promised. He didn’t look at her, choosing to focus on cleaning her wounds instead.

“Not me. Asami. There has to be someone who can rescue her.”

Speaking clearly took too much effort, but Korra attempted to sit up anyway.

“Stay still. As soon as I’m done with you, I’ll go after her,” Noatak said, pushing her back down. She struggled and he was forced to use both hands, leaning over Korra to keep her still.

“Amon?” Korra breathed. It looked like her strength was nearly gone, but she managed to grip his collar. “Get Asami back. You owe me-”

The effort was too much. Korra slumped, her head lolling to the side, and her hand fell from Noatak’s collar.

“Take care of her, Tarrlok,” Noatak said. He could hear his own voice, but it sounded far away. Without waiting to answer his brother’s questions, he headed into his room and opened the trunk at the foot of the bed. Under folded blankets was a past he had tried to forget: the hooded coat and white mask of Amon.

Noatak had found the mask at a market during the journey south and purchased it with a vague idea of having a concrete reminder of everything he was trying to put behind him. The coat he had kept because it was the only warm garment he had, and it was looking sadly tattered now. It looked appropriate to the idea stirring in his mind.

The hail was melting on the ground as Noatak left his house. Clouds still obscured the sky, but there was a scent in the air that suggested they would clear soon and that it would be cold in the morning. Waves crashed darkly against the sand and Noatak stepped into them without pausing. His skill at waterbending was more than sufficient to keep the water from harming him.

Korra had been soaked, far more than the hail justified. She must have come from the water, then. There was only one unfamiliar ship in the area and Noatak made for it.

Why Korra and Asami had been attacked, Noatak couldn’t be sure. It didn’t make much of a difference to him at this point. Asami had no bending and, while her self-defense skills would only be sharper from her years of friendship with the Avatar, she would be vulnerable to the abuses of people larger and stronger than she was.  
It wasn’t right. Noatak had tried to devote his life to righting the wrongs people did to each other, with disastrous results to due to the effect of bloodbending, and this was a wrong too great to ignore. He would ask Korra and Asami not to tell people he was alive, but that was up to them.

Asami might die if he did nothing.

The moon was shining when Noatak found the strange ship. It was a cargo ship, without a logo or name that he could see. The railings and decks were filthy, but the engine rumbled steadily through the water.

He rode a swell of water onto the deck and slunk into the shadows. A brief gesture pulled the water from his clothes, erasing the chance that he might be discovered by wayward dripping. He considered keeping it in hand but shook his head and let it fall back into the sea.

Bloodbending wanted to be used. This time, Noatak would indulge it.

He crept from shadow to shadow, drawing up the long-buried sensations. His heartbeat came louder to his ears, the rush of blood in his veins as ever-present as the waves. Ripples of smothering heat rolled over his body, but his fingers tingled with cold.

A man stepped on deck. From the filthiness of his clothes and the way he moved, Noatak assumed he was a smuggler or pirate. Either way, it didn’t matter much to him. Moving as silently as a chi-blocker, he stole up behind the man and clapped a hand over his mouth.

“Where’s the girl?” he snarled in the man’s ear.

When he struggled, Noatak reached into his blood. He could feel muscles tearing as the man fought to escape. A second heartbeat grew loud in his ears.

“I won’t ask again. Where is the girl?”

He removed his hand so the man could talk but held ready to move the blood in his lips if he tried to scream.

“B-Below. In the aft cargo hold,” the man whispered. Pain and fear filled his voice, but Noatak could hardly hear it over the pounding of his heart. He constricted the blood vessels in the man’s neck until he went limp and laid him silently on the deck. He would live, most likely.

Noatak headed below.

He made it to the right place without encountering any other crew members. Noatak was grateful for that. The shame of what he had done was setting in, along with the bone-deep disgust. Reaching into another person’s blood was hideously intimate, like touching internal organs. It didn’t tell him anything useful about that person, only where it would be easiest to hurt them.

Harsh laughter and a scream reminded Noatak of his task. He continued forward and came to an open door. This room must be the best-lit on the entire ship, because he could clearly see what was happening inside.

Most of the sailors were gathered in a loose circle. They all looked as dirty as the first one, tattered and lean. These were men that didn’t care about laws and authorities if they stood in the way, who would hurt anyone if they thought it would turn a profit.

They were merciless. Well, Noatak was familiar with men like that. He could be one of them and would be, once Asami was out of the way.

She screamed again, making the sailors laugh. Noatak edged inside until he could see her.

He only had a vague memory of Hiroshi Sato’s daughter. They had crossed paths less than a handful of times, but Sato carried a picture of her as a small girl. He had seen that a few times.

The girl on the floor didn’t look familiar. Her long dark hair was tangled and bloody, clinging to her head in uneven clumps. She curled into herself, gasping and crying. Strips of clothes littered the floor and what was left barely covered her. Under the blood streaking her skin, Noatak could see dark bruises spreading like ink in water.

Why? There was no reason he could think of for them to treat her like this. Asami had no family left to ransom her and her company would send nothing if she was hurt. Was it punishment for Korra’s escape? Surely men like this would recognize the Avatar and calculate how angry she would be to see her friend in this condition.

“Do you see now, girl?” a man asked. From the size of him and the way the other men gave him deferential space, Noatak assumed he was the captain. “What you’ve done isn’t natural. Once you see that, we’ll find you a man and life can go easier for you.”

“I love Korra. Nothing you do is going to change that,” Asami retorted. Her voice barely raised above a whisper, but the venom in it made the captain take a step back.

Oh. Noatak felt a dark fury building that had nothing to do with bloodbending.

These people were torturing a girl for no other crime than falling in love. Of all the things that Noatak hated, that was the worst one. In the middle of this ugliness, his thoughts flashed back to a night much like this one when he had found a young man bloodied in the street for the same reason. Sun, his lieutenant, who he had wronged more than anyone else. Noatak had loved him almost from the moment they met and never had the courage to say it. Now Sun would never forgive him.

Noatak forgot about staying quietly in the shadows. He hurled himself into the middle of the ring and set himself above Asami, shielding her with his body. The sailors shouted in surprise, but he didn’t give them a chance to try attacking him.

Noatak reached into their blood and tore them apart. The first, he simply crushed his heart and ripped his blood from his body. Guiding the blood with his mind, he shaped it into a rippling wire and lashed it around another man, slicing his limbs from his body. A snarl and a twist of his fingers sent frozen spikes of blood stabbing into several more.

Heat built in his chest and red blurred his vision. When it faded, Noatak found himself staring at the captain, huddled on the floor in the blood and fragments of his crew. The man was sobbing and babbling, but the sense of his words didn’t pass through the rushing in Noatak’s ears.

He extended his hand and slowly tightened it into a fist. The captain’s blood obeyed him, rushing up his neck and into his head. Pressure built and built, and the captain screamed.

He stopped screaming when his head burst open.

Noatak bent and lifted Asami. Thankfully, she didn’t stir. He hoped she had passed out before seeing the carnage.

The ocean air cleared the stink of blood out of his nose and he gently wrapped Asami in a blanket before heading into the wheelhouse. The controls were easy enough. Noatak set the ship on a course that would take it far out to open sea. By the time anyone discovered it, there would be no telling where the deaths had taken place.

Then he gathered Asami into his arms again and jumped over the side. The moon glimmered on the icy footprints he left on the surface of the sea.


End file.
